April is Stress Awareness Month, flagged every year since April 1992 with its purpose for gaining our attention and increasing our consciousness of the impact of stress for us in life personally, and for other people’s lives who are around us that we care for and love.
Earlier this month my article for sharing information about stress impact was thoughts on minimising it for ourselves and others in our workplace through those in leadership and management roles. I said I would do another article where the focus would be more on You personally, and here it is.
So, what about you?
Life and work can take a lot out of us as we continually give of ourselves to others and to the tasks we must complete.
This article is where we are going to focus together on replenishing ourselves and positively impacting on reducing stress in our lives, in many ways.
It is our health, our balance and our wellness that is at stake and we are far too important to wait for someone else to do this for us. We need to give ourselves what we need to be replenished. So, I ask You
What about your own wellness plan? Do you even have a wellness plan? If not, what would work for you?
I do love an anagram for structuring my thoughts and creating writing content.
I decided I would share with you as an example, a STRUCTURE of my own recently revised WELLNESS PLAN (WP).
ONE SIZE DOESNT FIT ALL, and my WP will not be your WP, just some inputs to consider.
My WP is dynamic, and it changes as my knowledge increases on certain topics, with my life events, and as my age increases too. I seek new and better ways to influence my health and wellness and to share this learning with others, to influence same.
Shortly moving into my 8th decade in life (ages 70 through to 79) I now think about things as part of my overall wellness that were not considered in much depth previously.
I am grateful to be alive and loving life, and in having the choices that I can make, when I know of others that sadly, have not been given the GIFT of a longer life.
I am mindful of my desire to be fit, well and healthy for as long as I can as I am sure my readers of this article will be too. I love my work and play and want to continue this for as long as I can; and without thought of retirement or having to give things up, for a long time yet.
My WELLNESS PLAN is keeping the following in mind, taking action daily, and being conscious of when I FEEL something is out of balance. I can look after myself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually & socially and I am taking responsibility where I can ‘wholistically’ for being fit, well and healthy; so, I can have my best life to share and give of myself with, and to others.
W
WATER AND HYDRATION
- I am not a willing great water drinker.
- The body is 70% plus water and hydration is vital for our organ health.
- Moving into my 8th decade is raising my WP activity considerably.
- Not only in drinking more water I am also researching about water quality. ELECTROLYZED REDUCED WATER is being hailed as
- ‘The Key to Good Health’ and the greatest discovery in medical science and healthcare since 1953, giving benefit to and prevention of many health conditions.
- I now think more about protecting the wellness of my brain organ.
- As we age, Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, and other age-related health impacts are moving into my awareness more to consider.
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EMOTIONS AND ENERGY LEVELS
- Feelings and recognising our feelings are our Geiger counter.
- Learning to ‘listen’ and be conscious of how I am feeling and where my energy is, means that I can act at the soonest when I am placing myself in stress situations and redress my balance at the soonest.
- Ask yourself – How do I feel in my body? How do I feel in my heart? How do I feel in my mind?
- Notice what you notice, and the area that feels lowest and in most need of attention?
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LOVE AND LEARNING
- I have a passion for learning and fall into the category of being a life-long learner. I LOVE it. Finding our passion, something we love that ‘lights our soul’ and touches us deeply will be very different for people.
- What ‘lights up your soul’ touches you on the deepest level / taps into the spiritual aspects for us? Art, music, green space, physical activities all have a place.
- Finding own and being ‘tapped in, tuned in and turned on’ is important in any WP.
- I still don’t know what it is I want to do when I grow up?
- I haven’t learned that yet?
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LEISURE and LAUGHTER
- Doing nothing and just chilling is part of my WP.
- Losing the guilt over taking time out to ‘just be’ is critical.
- Giving our minds and our bodies time to be in ‘nothing’ enhances our creativity greatly. Give your mind and body a rest.
- Laughter and taking a break from seriousness, watch something funny, laugh heartily with a friend – a good belly laugh is such good therapy!
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NUTRITION – EAT WELL
- It’s more than the 5 a day for me. I am mindful of what I eat and it still includes chocolate, wine, chips, and crisps. I work on balancing – including good food and nutrients, more fresh vegetable juices, soups and vitamin / mineral supplements.
- I love my food and it’s a part of my socially connecting. I don’t believe in depriving myself – I don’t have too. Just make wiser choices, and in being aware of how food reacts with me dictates some changes I make.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Where I am, who I am with, what I am doing creates a big impact on my emotions and energy. I am acutely aware of and move away quickly from what I consider to be toxic environments, people and drama that will impact my wellness through creating stress situations in my life.
- My home is my haven and work base, designed and styled to support my lifestyle, wellness, and work supporting others in wellness.
- It’s worth asking yourself the question, what toxic situations and people are in your environment?
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SOCIALLY CONNECTING
- People. People and more People. I am a person that simply needs to be with and around people. Working with, playing with, eating with, going out with -you name it, I do it with people.
- Caring for my family and being around the people I love most at regular intervals is critical for my health, and at the core of my wellness.
- I also need my alone time and make sure that my life includes both in the quantity and quality that is right for me.
S
SLEEP AND STRESS BUSTERS
- All the points in my WP work toward minimising the impact of stress in my life.
- Add in Kundalini Yoga / Meditation / Shakti Dancing / Reiki / Aromatherapy and the other complimentary therapies I have and use in my WP mean I have this area well covered.
- Interrupted sleep and being sleep deprived places the body under stress.
- Some things I do, going to bed earlier; not eating late at night, not checking technology last thing. All bad habits I am working on breaking!
- Lavender oil on pillow and chamomile tea in bed helps too.
- What can you add into your WP as stress busters?
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PLAY TIME / PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND BREATH WORK
- This comes in many variations and there are so many ways to have this in our lives.
- Gym work, swimming, walking in green space and yoga all have a place in my life. My body loves to move physically, dancing combines my love of movement to music.
- Play time includes my love of learning and I trained to be a yoga teacher in recent years and later this year will be doing further learning and training to become a Shakti Dance Trainer. This combines my love of learning to share with others along with physical activity improving my flexibility, strength, and stamina.
- Learning to breathe consciously and get more oxygen into my body is a great stress buster tool. The emotions impact directly on breath and when tense or stressed, practising conscious breathing brings great benefits in minutes.
- Google has many breathwork / relaxing techniques readily available.
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LIFE & WORK BALANCE
- Periodically using a Wheel of Life Tool to score my satisfaction and my own definition for success across 8 areas of my life. Health; Family and Relationships; Finance; Work / Career / Business; Significant Other; Environment; Fun and Recreation, and Spirituality.
- The Wheel of Life is a Life Coaching Tool I have used on self and others in my work for 30 years and is a great SELF-MANAGEMENT TOOL for my WP Toolkit.
- Be you. Live your own truth. Be the best YOU that you can be, that is success.
A
ACID AND ALKALINITY FOODS
- My body seems to be becoming more aware as I get older of the foods it doesn’t want anymore? Research and my learning tell me this is quite common and so I begin to adjust. Acid foods build up toxins in the body over the years that become more noticeable as we age.
- Removing some acidic foods and building in more alkaline foods is a recent change to my WP.
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NURTURE AND SELF-LOVE
- We cannot continually give of ourselves without also giving to ourselves.
- How would you nurture and love your best friend?
- Because really that is what we are for ourselves. Our own best friend.
- Having our own WELLNESS PLAN gives us the opportunity to nurture and to self-love ourselves, and we deserve that at least as much as we would give to anyone else that we care for.
- Do it now for yourself – you really cannot afford not to.